Kailash Satyarthi was awarded the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize, along with Malala Yousafzai, for his work helping children. Photo: Bret Hartman/TED

“All my best ideas were born of anger,” says children’s rights activist Kailash Satyarthi. As the first speaker in the closing session of TED2015, Satyarthi shows how fury can be an underestimated power to make change.

It’s the energy that’s informed his entire career — and led to his winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014. Says Satyarthi, when he was eleven, he saw his friends forced to leave school when their parents couldn’t afford textbooks – and that made him angry. When he was twenty-seven, he heard a slave’s plight at his daughter being sold into a brothel – and that too made him angry. At the age of fifty, he says, lying in the street in a pool of blood with his son, he was really, really angry.

“For centuries,” says Satyarthi, “We were taught that anger is bad.” “Our parents, teachers and priests — everyone taught us how to control and suppress our anger.” But why? As Satyarthi has found, some of his best ideas have come from rage.

This was crystallized in the way Satyarthi got his name. For Mahatma Gandhi’s birth centenary in 1969, a fifteen-year-old Satyarthi wanted to celebrate in his honor – with members of the untouchable class in his community, which was completely taboo. His town leaders were already speaking out against the caste system, so Satyarthi suggested a dinner together with members of the lowest caste as a way of setting an example.

Satyarthi persuaded all involved parties until they all finally agreed. On the day of the dinner, five members of the untouchable class came in their nicest clothes. At seven o’clock they sat down with Satyarthi, and … they waited. The leaders didn’t show up. At eight, Satyarthi rode his bicycle to the homes of the several leaders to remind them of the dinner, and was sent away.

“That made me angry,” he says with intensity on stage.

Later that night when Satyarthi came home, exhausted, several members of the high caste were waiting for him. They threatened to out-caste his family, “the biggest social punishment.” At last they agreed on a punishment just for Satyarthi: purification, a 600-mile walk to the Ganges, after which he would have to wash the elders’ feet and drink from the dirty water. “It was total nonsense,” says Satyarthi. His anger coursing deep, he “decided to outcaste the entire caste system.”

So he left his high-caste surname and adopted the name Satyarthi, which means “seeker of truth.” And in his capacity as truth-seeker, he has had a lifetime of astounding social good.

Drawing on his anger, he has helped bring about the fall of child labor in South Asia by 80 percent; he and his group have physically freed 83,000 children from slavery. “I’m urging you to become angry,” Satyarthi tells a rapt audience. “Because the angriest among others is the one who can transform his anger into idea and action.”

It is hard to believe that this is final session of TED2015. Luckily Session 12, “Endgame,” is our longest ever — with two full hours of talks that took us on a journey through the human experience, from anger to laughter and back again. Read a recap of these inspiring talks. An ode to anger. […]

Interesting thoughts on anger – an emotion that we rarely think of in positive terms. I am a journalism student from India and have keenly followed Kailasha Satyarthi, the first India-born person to have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, in the domestic and international media since he got it. But what does the press have to say about this man? Here’s a cross section of the opinions on him which I have come across.

BBC – “His campaigns over the years have ensured that India’s carpet industry has stopped using child labour. He also successfully led a movement to bring in a new law in 2012 to make employment of children under the age of 14 illegal – a law he considers his big achievement.”

Indian Express – “It is largely due to his doggedness and zeal that NGO Bachpan Bachao Andolan has emerged as by far the most prominent child rights group in the country even as 60-year-old Satyarthi rose to become a global voice for the children’s cause. He has passionately argued that child trafficking and labour perpetuate poverty, unemployment, illiteracy and population growth. From the factories exploiting children in the country’s biggest cities like Delhi and Mumbai to the hinterland of Odisha and Jharkhand where children are still illegally employed as bonded labourers, his organisation has rescued them in almost all parts of country.”

The Times of India – “The non-profit organization Bachpan Bachao Andolan he founded is leading the movement to eliminate child trafficking and child labour in India. The organisation has been working towards rescuing trafficked children for over 30 years. It receives information from a large network of volunteers.”
The Time: “But the 60-year-old New Delhi-based activist, originally from the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, has been almost singlehandedly leading India’s fight against child slavery for over three decades. To that end, he founded a grassroots nonprofit, Bachpan Bachao Andolan, or Save Childhood Movement, in 1980, which has to date rescued more than 80,000 Indian children from various forms of exploitation, like child labor and child trafficking.”

The Hindustan Times – “One of Satyarthi’s big achievements is the promotion of a consumer awareness campaign in Europe and the US aimed at dissuading consumers from buying carpets made by child labourers and simultaneously endorsing goods produced without exploiting children.”

thelibrariansfvcommented on Mar 22 2015

I found this to be very, very interesting. Not only does it have a lot of truth to it, but it inspired me to get angry more often, but in a good way. Anger does, as he says, bring about innovation and new ideas. This is because anger is caused by either a lack of something or too much of something. When I’m angry, I am the most determined to do something to make myself content, thus making anger a huge motivational drive.

There are so many diamonds and gems in our country that we don’t know of. I appeals to the govt of India also to recognize and reward his tireless struggle against Child labor. Right now we know about people like him and their works only after they are recognized by outsiders.

Never heard of him till he got Nobel prize for peace. This is what happens when people focus on their work and keep to themselves without lobbying for awards or prizes. The poor quality of lives of so many children in our motherland is a great concern. Thank you TED for hosting Kailash Satyarti as he focuses on one issue of such great importance to our motherland. Hats off to you Kailash Satyarthi!

It is hard to believe that one human can go so far in fighting for the rights of his fellow humans. I recollect reading about him in the Guardian in October last year and to quote from it: “In his 34 years as an activist, Satyarthi has freed tens of thousands of young Indians, some just five or six years old, forced into servitude by unscrupulous agents, businessmen, landowners and brothel owners.” Just how many of us can do that! That made me look up his work and here is what I found. I WANT EVERY INDIAN TO KNOW ABOUT HIS WORK AND TO TEACH THEIR CHILDREN ABOUT IT:

1981: Started unionising stone quarry workers and brick kiln workers and filed first Public Interest Litigation in India’s Supreme Court

1982: He conducted rescue operations across 10 states in India

1983: His efforts led to a historic judgement by India’s Supreme Court and thousands of bonded labourers were released at once.

1984: Initiated interventions in the carpet industry and process of liberating child labour in the industry began even as a fellow activist from the organisation Bachpan Bachao Andolan was assassinated.

1985: He and three other fellow activists brutally attacked while they were raising the issue of mass sexual exploitation of enslaved tribal girls and women. In the same year another fellow activist was assassinated

1987: His work led to the rescue of hundreds of children liberated from the slate-pencil industry in Mandsaur. Also nearly 2000 bonded families rescued from stone quarries with the help of Supreme Court

1990: Mukti Ashram, the first transit rehabilitation cum education centre established for bonded child labourers. Launch of the carpet consumer’s campaign in Germany and other countries

1991: Initiated ‘Anti-Firecracker Campaign’ to highlight the plight of young children involved in manufacturing of fire crackers; 10,000 schools and 6-7 million children were sensitised during the campaign

1995: Campaign against child domestic labour resulted in banning of employment of children by government employees

2007: South Asian March Against Child Trafficking for forced labour – a 5000 kms. march with 1 million people. Exposed slavery in the world’s largest garment company GAP Inc – resulted in a new chapter for ethical trade and supply chain management.

2008: India Action Week constituted – more than 500 child labourers rescued from various parts of India within one week

2010: 125 Public Hearings in 9 states organised on enforcement of Right to Education found dismal enforcement of the law.

2011: First ever comprehensive research on missing children in India launched.

Sohaib Azadcommented on Mar 21 2015

martinlepagecommented on Mar 21 2015

sriguruhariomcommented on Mar 20 2015

This man (Kailash Satyarthi ) has a dark side which he has been hiding all along.
He must have done some good and may have helped some children, but for what ‘intent’ and at what cost?
Google some info about him and you will find more, if you care for TRUTH.
If some serious agency investigate, this man will come out as a fraud and big crook.
1. Google, ” Records of Kailash Satyarthi’s trust missing: Court informed”.
Details: New Delhi: Vital records of a charitable trust, which along with one of its trustees Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi and some others is embroiled in a suit relating to alleged misappropriation of funds, have gone missing, a Delhi court has been informed. This case in pending in court. Satyarthi is not cooprating citing one excuse after another.
2. Kailash Satyarthi and Nobel Prize: Truth?
Details: Churches work in India to achieve their “Soul Harvesting Goals”. Church’s help to poor families and their children is always conditional in India, convert of Christianity and help is available.Kailash Satyarthi has been an active participant with Church folks and they cross-promote each other’s activities. Its an open secret.
3. Mr. Satyarthi’s journey of working Western Governments goes way back.
4. He worked with Western Politicians and marketed their orders to common people in India.
5. In 1995, Kailash Satyarthi got Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award.
6. A year later, in 1996, Kailash Satyarthi took his then 10 year old daughter Miss Asmita Satyarthi as a Witness before USA Congressional hearing on child labor to paint India as one of the worst Nation on the Planet so that US Government could bring financial sections against India.
7. This Congressional hearing was chaired by Congressman Joeseph Kennedy
8. Joeseph Kennedy’s sister Kerry Kennedy was the president of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights which awarded Kailash Satyarthi in the previous year- 1995.
9. Many Senators including the very influential Tom Harkin, and others in the US and West in general, have awarded and rewarded financially, not only Kailash Satyarthi but his daughter Asmita as well.
10. You connect the dots.
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